Purification of anterior pituitary cells and its apply to the study of cell to cell interaction

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This study is focused on identifying the mechanisms regulating cell-cell affinities in anterior pituitary gland. In the gland, 5 kinds of hormone-producing cells are distributed in an intriguing manner. For example, LH/FSH cells are often surrounded by prolactin cells, while ACTH cells are located adjacent to GH cells very frequently. Further, folliculostellate cells, which does not produce hormone, have a propensity to adhere each other. Based on these observations, we hypothesized that there is signal transductions between these cell types through the cell adhesions, and live cell purification and identification are crucial to decipher the precise mechanism. Recently, we have established two different methods utilizing lectin and genetically modified S100-b-GFP rats, which allow us to purify and identify live hormone producing cells and live folliculostellate cells from the mixed population of anterior pituitary cells, respectively. The data obtained from two approaches suggested that there are three local regulatory mechanisms in anterior pituitary cells; matricrine (effect of matrix), juxtacrine (effect of cell adhesion molecule), and paracrine (local expression of retinaldehyde dehydrogenases).